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On the other hand he cheerfully admitted the Â£130 Continental would be 40% cheaper if I were getting it done normally by them - AA call out thing. AA could have dropped me at a hotel and I'd have waited until morning, but they said they'd relay me home and dropped me at a BP garage in Hemel - then said they were sending a tyre fitter. Who was going to be there "by 2:15". I'd been up since 6, on 4 hours sleep, and it's very difficult to kip in a Smart. It's okay though, I nearly managed it 3 miles from home!

Callout of Â£70 fair, tyre markup, not!

Also his balancing machine was broken and he said it didn't matter because it's s back wheel. In fairness it barely matters because the Smart doesn't go fast enough for a slightly out of balance wheel to show up

(A long time ago, my Australian cousin bought a shit-heap Â£350 Mini in Manchester for 6 weeks hols. He had a blow-out just past M40(S) J5 Stokenchurch and had to pay Â£75 to get recovered to J4 High Wycombe. He phoned me for help as I happened to live there at the time. He had a shit spare that was no good. Fortunately for him, I gave him my spare from my Kitten Estate - lucky bastard I had the same 10" steelie rimz. I just sorted out some folding between him and myself to go and buy a new spare for my car.

A little after that, I had my own NSF blow-out at 80mph on the M6(S) at Killington Lake. Just gone past the slip for the services so pulled up on the hard shoulder before the services joining slip. A traffic plod pulled up not 5 minutes later and rather than berate the questionable condition of my spare tyre that I had somehow extracted from the cradle, he held a torch whilst admiring the car and telling me about his Dolly Sprint. Even though it was the middle of winter, I was sweating buckets in my sheepskin with the hot air blowing from the rad as I'd left the engine running...)

As already known, Buzz is one of the oldest Smarts - a 450 Pulse, with 599cc engine and soft-touch auto, it has chassis number 647. What's interesting is that it's nicer to drive than the 2004 cabriolet I tried!

Work needed, other than the usual cleaning - a new tyre to match on the back (hate mismatched tyres), the footwell floor/battery cover in the passenger side is missing.

Some rubber bits are tired, the wipers are totally shot, and the wheels need to be brushed and repainted - potentially back to original silver.

I'm glad you like it Richard and I've driven a few myself and must say it does seem quite nippy for a 600 last time I had a courtesy smart from merc it was a 700 and it didn't feel as quick as old Buzz.

Hopefully it should be trouble free as she's had some money thrown at her this year and don't change the top breather as I did that when it had the Sump change done.

Also she idles very well and doesn't use any oil which is a good sign that the rings are good and the inlet manifold is crack free which was always a common problem on the 600.

Being a pulse the Map is different to the base cars so it does give it a little bit more poke,
I hope you have years of trouble free motoring out of her, I'm missing her already as I normally go down Bexhill seafront on a Sunday for an ice cream in her.

I never bothered with a bike rack as I have a fold up bike which fitted in the back of the car nicely and it was quite amusing watching people stare in disbelief that you could get a bike out the back of a smart car.

Ridiculously high up in order not to block the lights. Strapped to the crossbar (which sadly on this one has some slight damage, but it was cheap). It blocks the tailgate, too, so it's bought mostly as a curiosity, another example of Swatch/Mercedesâ€™ clever design.

Apparently it slows it down quite a bit having a bike on there.

If I had a car with a towbar, I have a really nice bike rack to actually move bikes!

First of all, the pod wasn't put back together properly. Whoever was in there last broke off the stub for the trip/function button - Evilution helpfully don't mention removing the button first in their guide, so it's understandable how that would happen, but for now it's remade using a screw and bluetack until I can get a broken dashpod to salvage parts from.

I also got a clock - quick service from an eBay breaker...

Except - early production car quirks!

Can you see what's wrong here?

There's no connector on the board to plug the clock in to!

Dashboard has clearly never had clock or revcounter installed (I need to find the right screws to do this).

Just noticed a light guide cover out of place there - I wonder if the console has been removed when the radio was last messed with and the guide broken, that'd explain why half the heater controls don't light up.

But cosmetically it'll work until I swap in a switch island with the connector in place.

I was going to ask about the missing clock pod but thought 'eh probably just doesn't have one 'cause it's an early one'.
I really enjoy your attention to detail!
(Oh and Bromptons are well engineered - I just don't really like folding bikes).

Clock and rev counter pods are optional - finding a rev counter to match the early dashboard is going to be FUN. I've found a replacement footwell part, though now I'm trying to work out if the V001/V003 etc. variations are revisions of the part, or different equipment - my wheel trims are V003, for example (and they're not often found on Smarts these days, lower-spec models have smaller covers between the bolts) so might indicate "this is a wheeltrim, but V003 is the higher-spec trim level one".